Lux Lucet

Ruth and Naomi Leave Moab, 1860, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872).

Having observed the ongoing European migrant crisis from afar for these past several years, I’ve been tempted to think that even government officials whose policies caused the disaster in the first place would have by now woken up to the fact that things are not working out, admitted the error of their ways, and sought to change course. But such is not the case.

In an apparent attempt to secure her reputation as the second worst leader in German history, on Saturday, with US Vice President Mike Pence in attendance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her refugee policy that has allowed 1.1 million migrants into Germany since 2015, argued that Islam is not a source of terrorism and indicated that the European Union (EU) has an obligation to accept even more refugees.

These are astonishing claims, and one wonders how anyone with even a passing acquaintance with events throughout Europe in recent years could make them, let alone the Chancellor of Germany, whose nation has been among the hardest hit by the migrant crisis.

Consider the following headlines related to migrant issues in Germany taken from over just the past year.

• October 11, 2015 – Germany: Migrant Crime Wave, Police Capitulate
  
• January 5, 2016 – Germany shocked by Cologne New Year gang assaults on women
  
• February 4, 2016 – Germany Arrests Algerian Suspected of Planning Terrorist Attack
  
• April 6, 2016 – Cologne Police Reveal ‘Cover Up’ Of New Year’s Eve Rape attacks Ordered by Government
  
• April 18, 2016 – Former Chancellor Kohl: Migrants Threaten Judeo-Christian Social Order Of Europe
  
• May 11, 2016 – Dozens of terrorism suspects were among the recent flood of migrants into Germany
  
• June 3, 2016 – Police Kill Movie Theater Assailant in Germany
  
• July 18, 2016 – Axe-Wielding Afgan Refugee Shot Dead After Slashing 14 People On German Train Screaming “Allahu Akbar”
  
• July 24, 2016 – German machete attack: Syrian refugee kills woman and injures two other in Reutligen
  
• July 25, 2016 – Ansbach bomber declared support for Isis, says Bavarian official
  
• July 28, 2016 – German doctor’s horror as patient screaming “Allahu Akbar’ threatened to behead him
  
• August 9, 2016 – Germany Raids Healthcare Funds to Support Refugee Crisis
  
• August 14, 2016 – German President Booed, Attacked; Claims “The People Are The Problem, Not The Elites”
  
• October 2016 – A Month of Multiculturalism in Germany: Child Marriage, No-Go Zones, & Gang Rapes
  
• November 17, 2016 – ‘Pure hatred’: Translator reveals how Muslim refugees want to “Islamize” Germany
  
• November 22, 2016 – A Third of Germans Report Feeling ‘Like A Stranger In My Own Country’
  
• December 6, 2016 – Refugee Allegedly Rapes and Kills German Woman, Her Family Says to Send Donations to Refugees
  
• December 20, 2016 12 Dead, 48 Injured After Pakistan-Born Refugee Rammed Truck Into Berlin Christmas Market
  

It would take a strange definition indeed of “Islam”, “source” and “terrorism” for anyone to deny the connection between the religion of the Prophet and these horrifying acts of Islamic terrorism in Germany.  What part of “Allahu Akbar” do they not understand?

Is it not just obvious that letting millions of Muslims into your country, at taxpayer expense to boot, is a bad idea? The ideas held by the people of a nation determine the course of that nation. When you import a million Islamizes, you’re going to get Islamization on an industrial scale. Commenting on the United States, John Robbins wrote,

When we apply these insights to the United States, we notice several things. In the beginning all America was Protestant – 98 percent of the people. The numbers we have for church affiliation in seventeenth and eighteenth century America show that three-fourths of Americans were Calvinists of one flavor or another: Puritan, Pilgrim, Presbyterian, Baptist, German Reformed, Lutheran, Congregationalist, and Episcopal. There were few Catholics, almost no Jews or Methodists, and no Muslims, Mormons, Moonies, Buddhists, Confucianists, Hindus, or atheists. Had there been any large numbers of these groups, there would have been no America as we have known it, not because the people who hold these views are somehow inferior, but because the views themselves are inferior: They are logically incapable of creating and sustaining a free society (Rebuilding American Freedom in the Twenty-First Century, emphasis added).

Rejecting mass, taxpayer subsidized Muslim immigration is not, as some have charged, racism. Islam is not a race, it’s a religion. And as a religion, it is accompanied by certain tenants, certain doctrines. And if those doctrines conflict with the maintenance of a free society, and they do, Westerners have very good reason to be concerned about the Islamization of their countries and are well within their right to oppose it.

But if Islamization is so obviously a problem, why is it that Merkel and others cannot see this? Apparently they lack the discernment necessary to grasp the fact that their policies are destroying the very nations they were elected to serve.

And why do they lack discernment? “The fundamental answer” to why men lack discernment, as John Robbins reminds us, is “the will of God.” Robbins quotes several Biblical passages in support of this idea. Citing just one as an example, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold I will fill all the inhabitants of this land – even the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem – with drunkenness! And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,’ says the Lord. ‘I will no more spare nor have mercy, but will destroy them’ ” (Jeremiah 13:13-14).

It is God who both gives and withholds discernment from the hearts of men. And given the extreme state of ignorance of even basic politics in the West – according to the Bible, the task of the government is to punish evildoers, not invite them into your country to prey on your citizens and then tax the people for the privilege of being shot, bombed, and raped – it is fair to wonder whether it is God’s intention to destroy the West.

It is my prayer that this is not the case. But if he does intend to bring an end to Germany and other Western nations, it’s not as if he would be without good reason.

What we call Western Civilization is the result of the widespread preaching of,, and belief in, the Gospel of Jesus Christ beginning at the time of the 16th century Reformation. Yet for the past 200 years, the West has been in the process of rejecting Christ and embracing secular philosophy. As a result, the West is in the process of collapse. And the ongoing Islamization of the nations that were the cradle of the Reformation is one of the consequences of that collapse.

But perhaps God isn’t done with the West. Perhaps he is graciously warning us of what may happen if we stay on our current course. But if the West is to be saved, it will not happen as a result of political activity, but once again as the result of the widespread preaching of, and belief in, the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone.